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Originally Posted by Robert This poll was inspired by michellemfry and is a companion poll to the How many universes poll.
Assuming there is more than our universe, where are the others and can you base this on anything. Please include links to supporting material where possible. |
Ah, look at all this debate while I was distracted elsewhere... damn fine question, young Robert, stallion of a question, fine glint in this one's eye, indeed.
Radical answer emerging, processing, 10 seconds, 9... ignition systems flaring ... chocks away ... seatbelts on everyone ...
There is no universe, none in the form that we think, no God's eye view.
Each conscious being experiences a different internal cinema, a personal thread or pathway, and collectively, these overlap forming the appearance of what we call reality. Reality is merely a statistical overlap of shared cognitions AND imaginations. Ultimately even the laws of physics, and more, can change, have already changed, are different "elsewhere" and will change beyond and within my experience and yours and his and theirs and hers and on and on.
The central blockage blinkering us all to this truth - although for now I merely suggest it, I am not truly convinced, just spluttering over a different cup fo coffee for fun maybe on a cold winter's morning - anyway what specifically makes most of us think No Way Jose, no, impossible, is the Cartesian Co-ordinate thinking of x, y, and z graph paper defining no possible gaps in space and time.
However, this 3D idea occurred only in a couple of hundred years ago, and before that simple powerful model, there were loas of gaps where all manner of superstitions and stuff crept in. x,y,z has successfully hounded out all the demons and angels, that is what a good religion does, and it is our BELIEF in x,y,z as a God's eye view that we mistake for "reality".
HOwever, as humans, reality is A) what we can see and B) what we can agree that we can touch or feel - my upsetness or joys over something - if intangible or unreal to others, is not real and has not x,y,z reality beyond the random meaningless flow of brain fluids and signals, which is clearly not my upsetness nor my joys. C) to some extent what we hear, but the first sign of madness is hearing voices, so we are a little careful that the ideas in our heads remain thoughts, not voices, very clear about that.
I do see a logically complete alternative to x,y,z which is rotational co-ordinate geometry from each and every origin that is conscious or cognitive, the rotation being defined by the starting point (birth) and ending (death) within rotational planetary flows, bit hard to compress into one sentence, let alone one book. I am saying x,y,z presupposes only ONE reality and that by thought alone we all can align to that simple model. it is however, a delusion, it creates as many problems as it resolves - specifically war and trade problems, social deprivations and animals reduced to costs. Dignity and how alive and joyful each of us feel - cannot co-exist within measurable x,y,z reality therefore there is a deep malaise and mistrust now in the public, a shocking search for truth and meaning even in reality TV which is a contradiction in terms.
Rotational co-ordinate geometry has no possible single origin at all. No Greenwich, on the contrary, it forces the logic to include every child born in Africa or Asia as another origin and viewpoint that collectively add up to "reality".
Extreme ideas about what is and is not real, might actually be experienced in shared ways - ideas catch on and then we all flow into possibilties that started as imagination - paper money, credit cards, an American walking on the moon, a celebrity created only by Big Brother or Pop Idol. As a species we are flexing our collective ability to create and share new reality with increasing confidence in this information age. And dispose of other reality sometimes by killing (Hitler, Pol Pot, witches burnt alive) or ridicule (Gallileo, Van Gogh, Darwin, so many able politicians crushed by rumour or unusual personal lifestyle choices - very few actually reverse the force of collective ridicule, I cannot list those we crushed, they took their ideas to their graves).
Reality is in for a bumpy ride now. People will challenge central ideas - not merely social reality of what is decent or not on TV, such as autopsies and orgasms. That is just the start. People will challenge science, and I suspect a tsunami of disaffected public - used to voting out reality TV stars - will feel bolder and bolder and then want to vote out the unthinkable - axioms of science for example.
Will science survive? ONLY if it is truth, and is it? REALITY is the constantly shifting agreed world of the people you are sitting with, a hostage is sharing reality with those whose world view includes his life or death as a game of brinkmanship. As each generation takes over reality, as each species takes over, humans now, dinosaurs before, there was a dinosaur "reality" that died... Biologically, 20 million soldier ants and change the reality of the jungle by eating all the living creatures that cannot escape. Reality is local. Reality is fluid. Reality for eachof us extends as far as we can see, touch, hear, and imagine or influence. The reality of stars is truly little dots of light for most of us, and instrumentation and ideas and booklets for others. The reality of our sun, locally, is sunburn, warmth, daylight, etc.
So there is no "reality" as we understand it. Local reality is negotiated and redefined constantly by the beings - consciousness and bioforms and the physicality of inanimate objects combine locally, but the mystery truly is the role of the inanimate here...
Where are the other realities? For me I see one reality "in front" and I hear and feel it "around" something that is a focus that is "me". For me, I also experience ideas and so on, where - that is exactly it. It varies person to person. I think sensually (with my fingers and then sounds, not visually), so I need space to think and others need silence, or tidiness - to think clearly. Thought, mind, is placed by each of us to allow our style of thinking and the appearance of shared reality to co-exist. I suspect within the wiring of each brain, a different solution is reached where "out there" and "me" are placed visually, acoustically, and sensually, but in every case, x,y,z co-ordinates are impossible to map both "out there" as cognition and also "me" as the range of what mind experiences. Rotational co-ordinates - give me time, there is a glimmer of a new answer, I just cannot be sure yet.
"can you base this on anything" - exactly - down, the base, and up, the world. We all experience this - gravity, every waking moment, down is flat and our worldly cognitive experience ends solidly where our bodies encounter the gravity of the planet, standing, sitting lying down, that constant base is always within reach. Then we try to base ideas ... as if they stood up?
I think the down/up axis, with rotational co-ordinates based obviously - simplistically - front, right left and back, that is very clear as the common experience of all people. So our sense of WHERE is built entirely on a constant - and presumably shared - experience of down, and up, there up has no limit and down is the constant sensation pressing our flesh from the floor, and rotation has a natural front and back and left and right within that down/up. Although this is similar to x,y,z, it is personal and rotational - because down ends in pressure, that is our anchor in experiential reality.